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What if I told you that time has a race,

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a race in the contemporary way
that we understand race

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in the United States?

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Typically, we talk about race
in terms of black and white issues.

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In the African-American communities
from which I come,

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we have a long-standing
multi-generational joke

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about what we call "CP time,"

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or "colored people's time."

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Now, we no longer refer
to African-Americans as "colored,"

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but this long-standing joke

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about our perpetual lateness to church,

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to cookouts, to family events

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and even to our own funerals, remains.

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I personally am a stickler for time.

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It's almost as if my mother,
when I was growing up, said,

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"We will not be those black people."

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So we typically arrive to events
30 minutes early.

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But today, I want to talk to you
more about the political nature of time,

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for if time had a race,

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it would be white.

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White people own time.

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I know, I know.

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Making such "incendiary statements"
makes us uncomfortable:

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Haven't we moved past the point
where race really matters?

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Isn't race a heavy-handed concept?

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Shouldn't we go ahead
with our enlightened, progressive selves

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and relegate useless concepts like race
to the dustbins of history?

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How will we ever get over racism
if we keep on talking about race?

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Perhaps we should lock up our concepts
of race in a time capsule,

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bury them and dig them up
in a thousand years,

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peer at them with the clearly
more enlightened,

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raceless versions of ourselves
that belong to the future.

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But you see there,

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that desire to mitigate the impact
of race and racism shows up

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in how we attempt to manage time,

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in the ways we narrate history,

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in the ways we attempt to shove
the negative truths of the present

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into the past,

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in the ways we attempt to argue
that the future that we hope for

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is the present in which
we're currently living.

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Now, when Barack Obama
became President of the US in 2008,

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many Americans declared
that we were post-racial.

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I'm from the academy

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where we're enamored
with being post-everything.

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We're postmodern, we're post-structural,
we're post-feminist.

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"Post" has become
a simple academic appendage

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that we apply to a range of terms

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to mark the way we were.

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But prefixes alone don't have the power
to make race and racism

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a thing of the past.

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The US was never "pre-race."

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So to claim that we're post-race when we
have yet to grapple with the impact

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of race on black people,
Latinos or the indigenous

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is disingenuous.

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Just about the moment
we were preparing to celebrate

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our post-racial future,

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our political conditions became
the most racial they've been

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in the last 50 years.

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So today, I want to offer to you
three observations,

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about the past, the present
and the future of time,

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as it relates to the combating
of racism and white dominance.

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First: the past.

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Time has a history,

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and so do black people.

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But we treat time as though
it is timeless,

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as though it has always been this way,

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as though it doesn't have
a political history

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bound up with the plunder
of indigenous lands,

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the genocide of indigenous people

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and the stealing of Africans
from their homeland.

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When white male European philosophers

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first thought to conceptualize
time and history, one famously declared,

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"[Africa] is no historical
part of the World."

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He was essentially saying

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that Africans were people
outside of history

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who had had no impact on time

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or the march of progress.

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This idea, that black people
have had no impact on history,

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is one of the foundational ideas
of white supremacy.

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It's the reason that Carter G. Woodson
created "Negro History Week" in 1926.

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It's the reason that we continue
to celebrate Black History Month

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in the US every February.

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Now, we also see this idea

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that black people are people either
alternately outside of the bounds of time

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or stuck in the past,

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in a scenario where,
much as I'm doing right now,

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a black person stands up and insists
that racism still matters,

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and a person, usually white,

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says to them,

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"Why are you stuck in the past?

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Why can't you move on?

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We have a black president.

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We're past all that."

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William Faulkner famously said,

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"The past is never dead.

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It's not even past."

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But my good friend
Professor Kristie Dotson says,

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"Our memory is longer than our lifespan."

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We carry, all of us,

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family and communal
hopes and dreams with us.

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We don't have the luxury
of letting go of the past.

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But sometimes,

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our political conditions are so troubling

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that we don't know
if we're living in the past

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or we're living in the present.

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Take, for instance,
when Black Lives Matter protesters

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go out to protest unjust killings
of black citizens by police,

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and the pictures that emerge
from the protest

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look like they could have been
taken 50 years ago.

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The past won't let us go.

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But still, let us press our way
into the present.

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At present, I would argue

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that the racial struggles
we are experiencing

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are clashes over time and space.

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What do I mean?

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Well, I've already told you
that white people own time.

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Those in power dictate
the pace of the workday.

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They dictate how much money
our time is actually worth.

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And Professor George Lipsitz argues

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that white people even dictate
the pace of social inclusion.

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They dictate how long
it will actually take

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for minority groups to receive the rights
that they have been fighting for.

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Let me loop back to the past quickly
to give you an example.

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If you think about
the Civil Rights Movement

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and the cries of its leaders
for "Freedom Now,"

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they were challenging the slow pace
of white social inclusion.

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By 1965, the year
the Voting Rights Act was passed,

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there had been a full 100 years

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between the end of the Civil War

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and the conferral of voting rights
on African-American communities.

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Despite the urgency of a war,

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it still took a full 100 years
for actual social inclusion to occur.

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Since 2012,

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conservative state legislatures
across the US have ramped up attempts

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to roll back African-American
voting rights

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by passing restrictive voter ID laws

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and curtailing early voting opportunities.

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This past July, a federal court
struck down North Carolina's voter ID law

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saying it "... targeted African-Americans
with surgical precision."

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Restricting African-American inclusion
in the body politic

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is a primary way that we attempt
to manage and control people

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by managing and controlling time.

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But another place that we see
these time-space clashes

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is in gentrifying cities
like Atlanta, Brooklyn,

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Philadelphia, New Orleans
and Washington, DC --

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places that have had
black populations for generations.

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But now, in the name
of urban renewal and progress,

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these communities are pushed out,

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in service of bringing them
into the 21st century.

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Professor Sharon Holland asked:

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What happens when a person
who exists in time

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meets someone who only occupies space?

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These racial struggles

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are battles over those
who are perceived to be space-takers

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and those who are perceived
to be world-makers.

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Those who control the flow
and thrust of history

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are considered world-makers
who own and master time.

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In other words: white people.

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But when Hegel famously said that Africa
was no historical part of the world,

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he implied that it was merely
a voluminous land mass

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taking up space
at the bottom of the globe.

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Africans were space-takers.

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So today, white people continue to control
the flow and thrust of history,

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while too often treating black people
as though we are merely taking up space

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to which we are not entitled.

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Time and the march of progress
is used to justify

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a stunning degree of violence
towards our most vulnerable populations,

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who, being perceived as space-takers
rather than world-makers,

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are moved out of the places
where they live,

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in service of bringing them
into the 21st century.

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Shortened life span according to zip code
is just one example of the ways

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that time and space cohere
in an unjust manner

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in the lives of black people.

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Children who are born
in New Orleans zip code 70124,

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which is 93 percent white,

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can expect to live a full 25 years longer

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than children born
in New Orleans zip code 70112,

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which is 60 percent black.

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Children born in Washington, DC's
wealthy Maryland suburbs

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can expect to live a full 20 years longer

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than children born
in its downtown neighborhoods.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates argues

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that, "The defining feature
of being drafted into the Black race

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is the inescapable robbery of time."

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We experience time discrimination,

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he tells us,

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not just as structural,

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but as personal:

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in lost moments of joy,

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lost moments of connection,

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lost quality of time with loved ones

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and lost years of healthy quality of life.

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In the future, do you see black people?

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Do black people have a future?

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What if you belong
to the very race of people

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who have always been pitted against time?

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What if your group is the group
for whom a future was never imagined?

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These time-space clashes --

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between protesters and police,

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between gentrifiers and residents --

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don't paint a very pretty picture

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of what America hopes
for black people's future.

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If the present is any indicator,

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our children will be under-educated,

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health maladies will take their toll

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and housing will continue
to be unaffordable.

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So if we're really ready
to talk about the future,

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perhaps we should begin
by admitting that we're out of time.

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We black people
have always been out of time.

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Time does not belong to us.

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Our lives are lives of perpetual urgency.

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Time is used to displace us,

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or conversely, we are urged
into complacency

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00:11:04,223 --> 00:11:07,344
through endless calls to just be patient.

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00:11:07,985 --> 00:11:10,437
But if past is prologue,

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let us seize upon the ways in which
we're always out of time anyway

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to demand with urgency

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00:11:15,410 --> 00:11:16,728
freedom now.

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I believe the future is what we make it.

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But first, we have to decide
that time belongs to all of us.

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No, we don't all get equal time,

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but we can decide that the time
we do get is just and free.

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We can stop making your zip code
the primary determinant

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of your lifespan.

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We can stop stealing learning time
from black children

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through excessive use
of suspensions and expulsions.

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We can stop stealing time
from black people

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through long periods
of incarceration for nonviolent crimes.

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The police can stop
stealing time and black lives

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through use of excessive force.

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I believe the future is what we make it.

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But we can't get there
on colored people's time

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or white time

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00:12:04,415 --> 00:12:06,227
or your time

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00:12:06,251 --> 00:12:08,000
or even my time.

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It's our time.

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Ours.

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Thank you.

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00:12:13,540 --> 00:12:16,749
(Applause)